The streets of Undergleam felt like a wound that had scabbed over wrong. The alleys twisted and sagged, crammed tight between buildings that leaned in too close, like old conspirators whispering bad secrets to each other behind cracked shutters. No sun reached this place—not really. It barely tried. What little light scraped through was filtered thick by layers of grime and dust, smeared across low-hanging clouds of smoke that never quite rose. Every breath tasted like iron and mold, clinging heavy to his throat. Every corner reeked of rust, sweat, and quiet defeat, like the city itself was holding its breath against something too cruel to name.
Lucien Blackmoore moved through it with a practiced, deliberate ease, his black coat drawn tight around him, the Ledger heavy at his side, pulsing in steady beats like a ticking bomb nobody else could hear. This place wasn't just a maze of stone and shadow—it was a calculation, every step a sum of risk and reward, every glance a weighted choice. The city owed him debts, and tonight, he was here to collect.
The Ledger stirred against his ribs, flickering faintly beneath the worn leather cover as if alive, its glyphs pulsing in quiet warning. Target: Dren. Status: Unconfirmed allegiance. Task: Secure cooperation. Collection due: One soul signature.
Ahead, the Broken Coil slouched at the end of a narrow, twisting passage—half swallowed by rot and stained neon. Its rusted sign creaked lazily above the door, swaying like it didn't care if it fell to the street. Pale green light leaked from a cracked window, pooling on slick cobblestones like bile spilled from some broken beast.
Dren stood outside, posture twitchy, fingers flexing close to the hilt of a knife worn bone-thin. His face was all shadow and sharp angles, eyes darting like he expected the walls to reach out and snatch him at any moment.
Lucien stepped closer, voice low and smooth but his gaze pinned the man like a cold nail through flesh. "This slum isn't made for second chances. But if you play the long con right, you don't need one. I'm offering you a seat at the table. Not a promise. A proposition."
Dren's jaw clenched hard. Trust was the last currency left in these streets, and he'd spent his life hoarding it tight. But something in Lucien's tone—weighty and unflinching—made him pause. The certainty. The cold promise. "You expect me to believe you won't gut me the second I slip?"
Lucien flipped a brass watch from inside his coat, letting it fall between them with a cold clink. The dull metal gleamed faintly under the sickly green light. "Believe what you want. But time doesn't lie. And right now, yours is burning fast."
The Ledger pulsed sharper, a hot flicker running through Lucien's ribs. Warning: Time dwindling. Loyalty fragile. Immediate action required.
Dren stared a long moment before slow nodding. The motion was less agreement than resignation. "Alright, Blackmoore. I'll bite. But if this goes south, I'm taking you with me."
Lucien smirked—a grin honed from too many games played and won. "If you find me in the wreckage, you're welcome to try."
They slipped inside the Broken Coil together, swallowed by the sour smoke and low murmurs that filled its stained rooms. Inside, the air was thick enough to chew, the kind of place that stank of broken dreams and cheap spirits, where every shadow carried a memory better left forgotten.
Lucien slid into a cracked booth, leather cracked and stiff with age, and pulled a holo-pad from his coat. With a flick, drone feeds crackled to life across its screen, images flickering in motion and static, but the glyphs—those jagged scars of the Soulbroker's war—were unmistakable: scorched and wrong.
He narrowed his eyes, jaw tightening as he traced the marks. "Cassian's trashing the weave again. See the burn marks? These aren't just tags. They're coded to rupture soulglass."
Dren leaned in, frowning hard. "You're sure it's him?"
Lucien tapped the screen. A faint pulsing glyph shimmered—a warped, inverted seal of the Soulbroker's mark. "Nobody else dumb enough to forge this sloppy. Cassian's pushing too hard, too fast."
The Ledger pulsed again, a ripple of heat coiling through Lucien's coat. A whisper slid into his mind, low and dark: "Innocents burn."
Lucien didn't flinch, but his fingers curled tight against the edge of the booth. The glyphs told a brutal story of manipulated trades, forged boons, and a tribunal gone sideways. A soul bound to tip the scales in his favor. A girl, maybe sixteen. Marked and sealed before she ever got to plead.
He'd done it to win. And he had.
But the Ledger's warning stuck like a blade.
"Innocents burn."
He pushed the weight down, swallowing the bitter truth.
The Ledger pulsed once more, now a slow, deliberate beat. Current task update: Set bait. Feed false intel. Draw proxy. Trap deployment imminent.
"Dren," Lucien said flat, voice like cold iron, "we're setting bait. Let Cassian think he's winning. Feed him false intel. Make him show his hand. Then we trap whatever proxy he's using to bleed the district."
Dren blinked, then nodded slow. "Using me as the lure?"
"Using us both," Lucien corrected, eyes cold as winter frost. "But the Ledger does the heavy lifting. Just need to tip the tribunal again. Taryn leans when the data's right."
He reached inside his coat, pulling out a coin-sized disc etched with flickering glyphs—soulglass layered with artificial soul-threads. Empty now, but it wouldn't stay that way. Not if the plan worked.
The Ledger's pulse jumped hot again, a coiled serpent warning beneath his skin: "You're complicit."
Lucien didn't answer. Couldn't.
Outside, rain beat hard against the cracked windows like knuckles rapping urgent warnings. Or maybe just the sky breathing heavy above the scabbed wounds of the city.
Dren sipped something foul from a chipped mug, eyes steady. "So what's the real plan, Blackmoore?"
Lucien met his gaze without hesitation. "We rig a sting. Flip Cassian's forgery into a tribunal ruling. Discredit his proxy. Pull the market back from the edge."
Dren lifted a brow. "And the soul you traded to win the last hearing?"
Lucien didn't blink. "Her fear bought us time. I plan to pay it back."
But the Ledger knew better. It knew time was a currency too easily spent, too rarely repaid.
"You're no better."
Lucien lit a cigarette, inhaling slow, smoke curling around his face like a shadow. He exhaled hard, blowing smoke toward the rafters above their heads.
The city would choke on the truth eventually.
But not tonight.
Tonight, he was still writing the story.
Cassian's chapter was still waiting.
And so was the next move.
The Ledger thrummed, its glow dimming and brightening beneath his coat as if breathing—alive, watching, waiting.
Lucien folded the holo-pad away and rose, the weight of the city pressing down but the fire in his chest burning fierce. The night hadn't ended yet, and the game was starting to heat up.